Moriarty

‘Want to nosey around, do you?’ Lavelle asked.

I most certainly did. It was I who insisted on visiting the kitchen and continued from there down to the garden gate. I needed to see the metal hasp. Again, how fortunate to be a mathematician with a precise eye for measurements. I made a mental image of the position of the second lock so I would know where to drill when I returned. And once again, I played fair with you, my reader. I stated that I was the first to re-enter the kitchen and that I was briefly alone. What I failed to mention was that it gave me time to slip a strong opiate into the curry that would be served for dinner. Everything was now set for the next stage of my plan.

I returned just after eleven o’clock with Perry, who loved this sort of adventure. We picked the lock and drilled through the gate, then Perry climbed up to the second floor. Jones was right about that. We made no noise but we were reasonably confident that we would not be disturbed. Perry let me in through the kitchen door — I had told him where he would find the key — and then we set to work.

I am not proud of what took place that night. I am not a monster, but circumstances had compelled me to do monstrous things. First we silenced Clayton, the kitchen boy, the cook and the American mistress of Scotchy Lavelle. Why did they have to die? Simply because, had they been interrogated the following day, they would all have sworn that the telegraph boy never entered the house and, with nothing to lose, they might have been believed. If so, the entire scheme would have unravelled and I could not afford to take the chance. Perry committed three of the murders and I rather fear that he enjoyed them. I myself smothered Henrietta and then carried Lavelle downstairs, still deeply asleep. I tied him to a chair and woke him with cold water. Then I inflicted a great deal of pain on him. It was a disagreeable business but at that stage I did not know where Clarence Devereux could be found. Nor did I know what he was planning. To give him his due, Lavelle was courageous and resisted for quite some time, but no man can withstand the torment of a smashed knee when it is manipulated and from him I learned of the robbery that was about to take place in Chancery Lane. Lavelle also told me that Devereux was to be found in the American legation, but he did so with a certain bravado, for in his mind his master was out of my reach. I could not break into the legation and Devereux never emerged. I saw at once that, with his agoraphobia, my enemy was a true snail within a shell. How could I possibly winkle him out?

I let Perry cut Lavelle’s throat — give the boy a treat — and we left together. But first I wrote the entry in the diary for Jones to find the next day: HORNER 13. Just in case the clue was not obvious enough, I placed a bar of shaving soap in the same drawer; an odd item for a man to have in his desk, you might think, but I hoped it would put Jones in mind of barber’s shops. I also left the invitation to the party at the American legation somewhere he would see it.

The horrible murders at Bladeston House were enough to galvanise Scotland Yard into action. With all the single-minded determination that I had come to recognise in the British police, they decided to set up a meeting and talk about it. Even so, I was pleased when Jones told me that I was to be included. My one great concern was that Jones, or one of his colleagues, would decide to contact the Pinkerton Agency in New York, in which event I would be exposed at once as a fraud. It was for this reason that I asked about the telegraph room. It would take days to send a message abroad and perhaps days for the reply but that still left me with a sense of unease and little enough time to bring my plans to fruition. Then, when Inspector Lestrade insisted on contacting the agency personally, I decided I would have to take action. Before I left the building, I knew exactly what I had to do.

It was I, of course, who ordered the attack on Scotland Yard the following day. Although everything I subsequently said was designed to make Jones believe that he was the intended victim of the explosion, it was in fact the telegraph room — a fortunate coincidence that it was next to his office — that was the real target, ensuring that Lestrade’s irritating message would not be sent for some time to come. Perry carried the bomb into the building while Colonel Moran waited for him in a brougham. Just before the explosion, I went through the charade of drawing attention to them, even risking my life beneath the wheels of an omnibus. It was important that Jones should see that they had come in a brougham — I had chosen that type of carriage on purpose — for I knew that he would use every means at his disposal to track it down. Perry and Moran told the driver to take them to the American legation but, just as at Bladeston House, they did not in fact go in. It was enough that they had been close by.